There were dismayed shouts and wails from among the senior command staff.

“It’s early,” sighed Admiral Marsh, Navy Headquarters’ site manager.

With the High Admiral lost, and the various Fleet Admirals trying in vain to organise the evacuation of the planet, he had been left in charge. It seemed, though, that the asteroid was dead set on heading for Navy Headquarters.

He wondered if some god was sat laughing at this prospect.

“Everybody out!” he bellowed. “Get to a shuttle, teleporter, anything. Get the hell out of this hemisphere!”

Nobody moved, rooted with fear.

“NOW!” he roared.

He crossed to the central console, and brought up the power reserves.

His brain opened up with the possibility of a plan.

It wouldn’t work, not completely.

But it would buy time for more people to be saved.

He tapped into the planetary power reserves, and fed it all into Headquarters’ shield system, extending the flashing twitching blue bubble upwards towards the rock.

Singapore blacked out, then the towns and cities around it, the power draining from every core and crystal in the eastern hemisphere until that half of the planet was black. Sparks flew and consoles screamed at the abuse, but he knew it would be worth it for just an extra few seconds.

The two forces met with a roar of wind, an almighty thunderclap of rock splitting, and the fizzing of the shield.

It held for nine seconds, far longer than even Marsh’s estimate.

It wasn’t much, as he knew, but it was enough.

The shield gave out, and the feedback utterly destroyed the command centre, and half of the Headquarters’ building, taking Marsh and a dozen others with it.